Conventionally, there has been known the combined heat exchanger configured to enable heat exchange among the three types of fluids. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a heat exchanger that is mounted in a vehicle, and configured to enable both a heat exchange between a refrigerant of a refrigeration cycle device and a vehicle exterior air (outside air) and a heat exchange between the refrigerant and an engine coolant.
More specifically, the heat exchanger of Patent Document 1 is configured as a so-called tank and tube type heat exchanger having a refrigerant tubes which allow a refrigerant to flow therein, and a refrigerant tank that extends in a direction along which the tubes is stacked on each other, and collects or distributes the refrigerant flowing in the refrigerant tubes. The heat exchanger conducts a heat exchange between the refrigerant flowing in the refrigerant tubes and the outside air flowing around the refrigerant tubes.
Further, in the heat exchanger of Patent Document 1, a heat pipe connected to a coolant tank in which the engine coolant flows is arranged between the refrigerant tubes stacked on each other, and a heat exchange fin that enables a heat transfer between the refrigerant flowing in the refrigerant tubes and the engine coolant flowing in the heat pipe is arranged in an outside air passage formed between the refrigerant tubes and the heat pipe to exchange a heat between the refrigerant and the engine coolant.
Also, Patent Document 2 discloses means for communicating an internal space of the tube with an internal space of the tank through an intermediate plate member, etc. in manufacturing a heat exchanger of the tank and tube type. With the above configuration, in the heat exchanger of Patent Document 2, a communication state between the internal spaces of the respective tube and tank for distribution or collection, and a direction along which a fluid flowing in the tube flows can be easily adjusted.
Further, in the heat exchanger of Patent Document 2, a simple configuration in which fluid communication holes through which the fluid flows are provided in a simple plate-like member is adopted as the intermediate plate member, thereby improving a productivity as an overall heat exchanger while suppressing an increase in the manufacturing costs of the heat exchanger per se, which is caused by application of the intermediate plate member.
In the heat exchanger of Patent Document 1, in order to realize the heat exchange between the refrigerant and the outside air, and the heat exchange between the refrigerant and the coolant described above, the refrigerant tank and the coolant tank configured as different bodies are arranged adjacently in a flow direction of the outside air, and the heat pipe shaped to be bent in the vicinity of the coolant tank is applied. However, the application of a complicated shape curved in the vicinity of the coolant tank as the heat pipe could cause the degradation of the productivity of the heat exchanger.
On the contrary, in the heat exchanger of Patent Document 1, for example, even if the intermediate plate member and so on disclosed in Patent Document 2 intervenes in connection between the refrigerant tank and the refrigerant tubes, the communication state between the internal spaces of the respective tube and tank for distribution or collection, and the direction along which a fluid flowing in the tube flows cannot be adjusted. Further, the shape of the heat pipe cannot be changed. Therefore, the productivity as the overall heat exchanger could not be sufficiently improved.